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Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB vs Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Intro

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB has core speeds of 825 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4890 2GB, which features a clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 975 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4890 2GB should be a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB 124800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 115200 MB/sec
Difference: 9600 (8%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 2GB should be quite a bit (more or less 52%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB 40000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 13600 (52%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 2GB 16000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 10400 (65%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB Radeon HD 4890 2GB
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Jan 28, 2008 Apr 2, 2009
Code Name R680 RV790 XT
Memory 512 MB (x2) 2048 MB
Core Speed 825 MHz (x2) 1000 MHz
Memory Speed 1800 MHz (x2) 3900 MHz
Power (Max TDP) (Unknown) watts 190 watts
Bandwidth 115200 MB/sec 124800 MB/sec
Texel Rate 26400 Mtexels/sec 40000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 26400 Mpixels/sec 16000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 320(64x5) (x2) 800(160x5)
Texture Mapping Units 16 (x2) 40
Render Output Units 16 (x2) 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit (x2) 256-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 55 nm
Transistors (Unknown) million 959 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16/(internal PCIe 1.1 x16) PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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